1/21/2006

Well, so far my "vacation" has been unremarkable. I'm normally off on Fridays and yesterday was nothing to write about here. Eric and I are both getting sick, it seems, and I was feeling tired and generally blah. I am very happy to not be going back to work until February 6th though.

This past Tuesday, a friend hired me to work at a private screening of the film Live Freaky! Die Freaky!It's going to be shown soon on a few screens around the country and then come out on DVD at the end of the month. John Doe, a couple of the guys from Rancid, and several other musicians were involved with the movie. That's how I got to see John Doe and Rancid perform and acoustic show (and get paid for it!)

I can't say a lot about the film itself as I only saw bits and pieces of it. It is pretty rauchy and gory, so I know several people who will love it! It was a fun evening, but I was disappointed that no one from Green Day or Blink-182 came to the event.

I have tons to do before leaving for The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Monday. Laundry, cleaning, etc, etc. I'd hoped to get a new camera before the trip, but it seems I just missed a bunch of sales and rebates and the prices are back up. So, I'm going to wait for a bit and see if I can get a better deal.

1/15/2006

I really should be outside taking photos. We have a gorgeous blue, cloudless sky, thanks to the bit of rain yesterday. It's windy and sort of chilly, by Southern California standards, but simply beautiful.

In spite of the outdoor splendor, after I run a few errands I will be parking my butt in front of the tv for my Battlestar Galactica Season 2.0 marathon. Eric just left to go to San Jose for a few days, so I won't be watching the season premiere of 24 tonight and tomorrow night. This will keep me distracted and hopefully get me caught up to the current episodes.

Even though I didn't go to the Duran Duran show in Cabazon last night, I've had some fun the past few days. Thursday night was the monthly Downtown Art Walk in Los Angeles. We happened upon one of the galleries at just the right time to see Clive Barker painting nude models who then walked around the gallery and posed in their newly colorful skin. We ended our night downtown at the "Speakeasy," a prohibition era inspired place underneath one of the galleries. You need a password to get in and it's dark and atmospherey. The sad thing is that the city is going to tear down the gallery and build a car wash for the police department. I wish I was kidding.

We went to another art event last night. There was an opening reception for Lara Jo Regan's newest Mr. Winkle exhibit, Hotel-Motel Nudes. For those of you who are Mr. Winkle fans, it is a great collection of photos of the famous dog sans costume in various hotels and motels. I can't wait until she publishes these shots in a book because they are wonderful.

I almost forgot that we went to the L.A. Auto Show Friday night. I was underwhelmed. I not really a "car person" anyway, but it just seemed more lame this year. I did confirm that the Scion xA is the next car I plan to own, possibly sooner than later.

1/12/2006

My husband, bless his sheltered childhood, honestly believed until recently that dogs who wear those [cones] are "retarded." Not that it makes them that way, but that it's a precaution -- akin to the stereotype of a child who must wear protective headgear. This comment not only made me laugh out loud, but reminded me of a great segment I heard on This American Life this past summer, which is described as:

"Small Thoughts in Big Brains. This American Life producer Alex Blumberg investigates a little-studied phenomenon: Children who get a mistaken idea in their heads about how something works or what something means, and then don't figure out until well into adulthood that they were wrong. Includes the tale of a girl who received a tissue box for Christmas, alledgedly painted by trained monkeys."

It was a great piece that I, and probably Karenna's husband, could relate to. The thing I believed, well into my teenage years, was that crossing signshad a word pronounced "Zing!" (Xing). There was the railroad zing, the pedestrian zing, etc. Someone that was profiled on the show had the same issue and was embarrased when she said it outloud to another adult friend. Another person believed unicorns were real and only learned of their imaginary status when discussing extinct animals with a group of college buddies.

So, anyone have one they'd like to share? It is fun to sometimes laugh at others, but I think we only deserve to if we laugh at ourselves as well.

1/11/2006

That's my 13 year-old American Eskimo dog, Cosette. She had some benign growths removed from her snout, chin, and head on Monday and will be wearing this fashionable e-collar, aka cone, for 7-10 days. The first day was alright as she was still a bit drowsy. However, now she is feisty and being a real pain.

Last night was awful. Cosette was so restless and I barely got any sleep. One thing you must understand about Cosette is that she is very intelligent. I think she kept me up on purpose. Since I laugh at her wearing the cone.

1/10/2006

It turns out I was not the only one in my book club who had trouble getting through the selection we've been working on for the last couple of months. We discussed what we could and are putting it aside. We were reading Collapse by Jared Diamond, which has some very interesting things to say, but needs to be edited down severely. For all of his talk of societies destroying the environment, he sure did kill a lot of trees for this book!

Anyway, I've ordered a used copy of our next couple of choices, so while I await their arrivals, I can dive intoDuran Duran: Notorious without guilt. I got it for Christmas and have really wanted to get going on it, but felt obligated to finish the book club one first. So much for that.

Before I get into the history of The Fab Five though, I must watch the final episode of Battlestar Galactica from the first season and then start hunting down the episodes from this season I've missed. We either have them sitting on the Tivo or unmarked dvd's.

We all need time to catch up from life sometimes. That's what today is for me. I'm catching up on sleep, laundry, photo uploading, photo challenges, email, bills, and Battlestar Galactica. For whatever reason, I never started watching the series. Okay, it may be that I tend to not like shows set in space (besides Red Dwarf that is). Anyway, so many of my nerdy friends, including my husband, love the show so much that I decided to give it a look. I started with the nearly 4-hour miniseries and have watched eight of the 13 episodes of the first season. Now I know what all of the acclaim is about. It is a dramatic show with very compelling characters. I think I even dreamed about some of them last night!

I'm exhausted from our trip to Vegas, but it was a great time. CES was huge and overwhelming as usual. My absolute favorite thing was the ASIMO demonstration. It is an amazing robot.

Otherwise, I was hoping to seeing and comparing different digital cameras. There really wasn't a lot in the way of still cameras on display. I did do a demo at the Creative booth of a video blog. It was fun, but the video itself is kind of scary. Luckily, the link doesn't seem to be working, so I won't be posting it!

On Saturday night we had dinner with some friends from L.A. We haven't seen them for months at home, but were able to meet up in Las Vegas. After dinner, Eric and I headed over to the Venetian for the annual event we've dubbed the "porn parade." Each year, the Adult Entertainment Expo and the AVN Awards (porn Oscars) are held the same weekend as CES. The award show takes place on Saturday evening at the Venetian, so we usually head over to that casino between 11pm and midnight for some excellent people watching as people are leaving the event. Some of it is downright frightening and sad. But never dull. I am amused watching all of the other people (mostly men) lined up to watch too.

1/06/2006

Just about ready to head over to CES and check out the up and coming techy goodness! I'm not sure how much gambling we'll do this trip, but if our luck continues the way it has been so far, we probably should give it a go.

True to form, we were running late getting on the road yesterday. There was a house to clean, haircuts (and color for one of us...not me!) to be gotten, and an editing project to be finished (again, not me). We have a habit of driving to Vegas at night, which definitely has disadvantages, but more advantages such as no traffic.

We'd made a reservation at Palace Station, an off-strip hotel that recently underwent much-needed renovations. They had the best price of any of the hotel-casinos. Even better than The Orleans, which is where we usually stay for CES. Palace Station used to be really gross, but is better since the refurbishing. Well, we booked a room for about $90/night, a good rate for such a busy convention time.

Arriving at Vegas at 3:30am can be a good thing. It's happened to us before elsewhere and again, the "only rooms left" were suites. We actually got put into a $1500/night "grande suite" and we get to stay in the whole weekend. Once at The Orleans we ended up in a suite bigger than our house (I am not kidding) with a shower bigger than our one measley bathroom back in North Hollywood. We had to move after the first night though. Here's the view from the bedroom:

You'll note the nice widescreen tv! We have a huge bathroom and a powder room! Too bad we'll barely be in here. Anyway, I have gadgets to go drool over!

Oh, and it's in the 60's today and sunny. Much better than last year when it snowed!

1/05/2006

1. Have you been listening to any podcasts lately? If so, what ones?To be honest, I haven't quite figured out the whole podcast thing yet. So, no. I don't get a lot of opportunity to even listen to my mp3 player since I don't really have a desk job or a very long commute.

The only one I really ever listen to is Geeks On with Eric when we are driving somewhere. We know one of the guys on it, so Eric downloads it. It can be fairly entertaining. They lose me a bit if their episode is too video game talk intensive though.

2. I see you got a lot of interesting things for the holler-days. No one wants to pick a favorite but what really stood out to you?I'd have to say seeing Little Drummer Bowie. I'm so sorry you didn't get to see it. It was hilarious and I laughed so much. It really helped bring me out of my holiday funk a bit. But yeah, I don't like picking a favorite, so I'm going to say Solvang was great too.Oops! I realized I didn't answer your question appropriately. Yes, I did get some cool holiday gifts. Stand-outs include my artwork by Ted Meyer, the books I received, and my iDog. Oh, and I got a really, really cool fuzzy orange scarf!

3. Did you have fireworks at Disney on New Year's Day or was it too rainy? Did you see that crazy Tinkerbell? Would you do that? (if you don't know what I am talking about then clearly you didn't see it)They did cancel the fireworks on New Year's Day, however we saw a bit of the display while having dinner in New Orleans Square the previous Thursday night. We couldn't see much of the fireworks, but we heard everything and saw Tinkerbell. I've see her a few times before and HELL NO! I'd never do that!

4. I have only been to Solvang once and I didn't get to have any aebelskiver (but I bought some mix and never made it)! What do you like to do in Solvang? (They have a good book store if I remember correctly).There is a good book store and lots of other unique shops. There used to be a great toy store too, but it closed, as did several of the shops. I like to walk around, eat some aebelskivers and other Danish food. There's a pet supply store we always go to and that was one place we were able to take the dogs in. We really didn't go into many shops since the canines were with us. It was a beautiful day though and a great place to take photos. It's very small and quiet, so a few hours is usually enough.

5. Any particular stand out moment of 2005?I can NOT narrow this down to just one. There were several, including:

Seeing all five original members of Duran Duran in concert

Our 10th Anniversary/Belated Wedding Reception/Oscar party

Visiting with some college friends in NY

My first trip to the Sundance Film Fest

6. Any thing you are particularly looking forward to in 2006?

Sundance

Comic Con

Possibly getting a new digital camera (I'll be checking them out in Vegas at CES!)

7. I hate resolutions, I prefer to have motto for the year. What do you think your motto for 2006 will be?"Less eating, more drinking!!!"

8. What do you think will be the "big thing" for 2006?Impeachment of the President and/or portable media devices (hey, I can tell you more after CES!)

9. Come to think of it, what the heck was the "big thing" for 2005?Portable media devices, Xbox 360 Playstation 3, and Blu-ray DVD

10. Please tell me one thing you will absolutely, positively get done this year Write and/or assemble and self-publish a book or two. (Maybe if I get them done in time for Comic Con, maybe a couple of nice geeks I know will let me put a few out at their booth in exhange for (wo)manning the table some!)

1/03/2006

So the holidays are officially over. For me, at least. I don't celebrate Armenian Christmas or the Chinese New Year, so yep, it's done. (But, of course I am very excited that it will be the "Year of the Dog!"). I don't really have any major festivals I participate in coming up. I will watch fireworks in July, but that's about it.

Anyway, I'm happy to be past the pressures of the holidays (which I mostly put on myself), the disappointment that I didn't send out cards or get gifts for some people, the exhaustion of working my near-normal schedule while still participating in lots of extra activities and good cheer, and the general annoyance of festive music, arguments over what to call the season, etc.

Next year, I'm seriously considering just breaking out a Festivus pole and doing feats of strength. That way, I'll get a jump start on that ubiquitous resolution of "getting in shape."

January is shaping up to be quite a busy and fun month. This coming weekend, we head to Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show. We've gone for several years now and always have fun looking at cool gadgets that may not reach the shelves for a year or so. I plan to check out digital cameras as I'm itching to upgrade. I kind of have my heart set on one already, but really have not compared it to what else is out there or coming out.

At the end of the month, Eric and I will be going to Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Fest. It will be my second year. We're sharing a condo with some of the filmmakers we stayed with last year for the second week of the 10-day event. Also, we'll be hosting the 2nd Annual "Condodance," where other people are invited to show their films, eat spaghetti, etc.

Oh yeah, we did make it to Disneyland on New Year's Day. It rained a bit, which was great for thinning the crowds. We walked right on to most rides, except of course Peter Pan's Flight, which always has the longest line in the park! And it is barely a 2-minute ride! It is worth it though, I suppose. Photos coming to my Flickr page sometime this week!